History Repeats
by Satan Abraham
Summary: There could've probably been a better way to go about this. But you've tried breaking up with Horuss the normal way, and Cronus is the only one stupid enough to seriously go for you with Horuss still in the picture, so it's not like you had any other option. Still, you can't believe you're in this situation again. Crofioh.
1. Chapter One: Rufioh

Your name is Rufioh Nitram and you have _never_ seen Cronus so focused on something that wasn't scoring a date.

He's sitting crosslegged on the grass, computer in front of him, headphones over his ears and notebook paper over on the side. There's also an array of musical instruments around - a guitar, a small keyboard, even a snare drum. You wonder how long you can watch him work before he notices you and starts hitting on you. Since he has his headphones in, probably a while.

You sit down behind him, watching him mess around on his computer for a few minutes, then go to his notebook, chewing on the end of his pencil, then playing a few chords on the keyboard, scowling or nodding or biting down harder on his pencil. You see a few broken pencils a few feet away. Music must be frustrating.

After another half an hour, he takes out his headphones, stretches, and notices you.

"Whoa," he says, blinking. "Didn't see you there."

"You looked kind of busy..." you say trailing off. "Didn't want to bother you or anything, haha..."

He smirks. "You could bother me anytime," he says, pulling his cigarette out of seemingly nowhere and sticking it into his mouth. "You bother a certain part of me most of the time, anyway, why not add the rest of that into it?"

"Oh, wow..." you say, glancing around. While it's true that everyone apart from Meenah has hit on you, you're still never quite sure how to deal with Cronus. If there's any troll with a more fragile self-esteem than you... at least the other trolls _like_ you. "That was way more information than I needed..."

He's kneeling, looking sort of like an excited little animal of some sort. "So, how long were you there?" he asks. You don't actually want to admit that you were watching him work on his music for close to forty minutes, so you shrug.

"A few minutes..." you say, and he looks sort of disappointed. You didn't actually want to hurt his feelings, but he can deal with it, right? Wow, he's looking really sad right now. Okay. Uh, wow, you don't really know how to deal with this. You could ask him about his music, you guess. Would he like that? He likes talking about himself, you know that, so it would probably work. "So... what are you working on?"

He perks up immediately and goes into a huge speech that includes a lot of things that you had no clue were even things, let alone what they are. Still, you nod, pretending that you understand what he's saying, and go over the plot of the last episode of Cleaning Solutions in your head. You still think that it should have ended differently, even though it ended a long time ago and there's really nothing you could do to fix it, especially since you've been dead forever. You're just still a little bitter that it didn't go out with more of a bang. Sure, the end was heartwarming and all that, but still. Could've been way cooler.

"...so, do you want to hear it?" he asks. You, having nothing better to do and not wanting to run into Horuss for another few minutes, shrug.

"Sure," you say. He pulls his computer out and pulls his headphones out, pressing play.

And he's actually pretty good. You've got to hand it to him, this isn't complete shit. He's looking at you, expectant, and you nod. He's actually been pretty bearable this entire conversation. You should make him talk about his music more often, because when he does he spends less time trying to get you to sleep with him. It's pretty great.

* * *

The next time you see Cronus, he's apparently just been rejected by Latula, if the imprint of skateboard wheels across his face are anything to go by. Either that or he was screwing with Mituna again. Either is pretty plausible.

When he sees you, he wipes blood out of the corner of his mouth and manages a sort-of grin. There's not much he can do with his face being in pain, but he tries. Way too hard, but he tries. You have to give him credit for that.

Or, you would, if he wasn't such a douche.

"Hey, Rufioh," he says, getting way too close. You back up a few steps, but he just keeps coming. Eventually, you just decide that he's going to be three inches away from you no matter _what_ you do, you're just going to have to deal with it. After all, if Horuss comes along and kicks his ass, it's not your fault. "You're looking fine."

"Yeah..." you say, trailing off. You find yourself fascinated with the imprint on his face. Like, wow, she must have hit him really hard to get them that far in. Maybe she rode her skateboard over his face somehow? Huh. The mysteries of the universe.

He notices you looking and draws himself up taller, like they're some sort of battle scars. "Latula was being a _major_ bitch. All I was doing was talking to her matesprit, all nice-like, you know, asking him about his totally irrelevant interests, like Kurloz and skateboarding and falling on his face like an idiot, and she just comes out of nowhere and lands her skateboard on my face. It was _totally_ uncalled for. I don't even know what her problem is."

You think you know what her problem is.

But, hey, at least now you know how those skateboard wheels got imprinted in his face so deeply.

Him being a major douche isn't going to stray you from your purpose, though. You are going to break up with Horuss if it kills you (or kills Cronus), and you've figured that the best way to do that is to just get a new matesprit. Nobody is stupid enough to go for you while you're still in a matespritship with Horuss, apart from Cronus, and you do sort of want to have some sex where sweat isn't a major part. A little sweat is fine. It happens.

Sweat that fills the bucket that you're supposed to use for other things, however, is sort of a problem.

"So, anyway..." you say, and suddenly all of his attention is on you. He gets closer, if possible. "I was wondering... if you maybe wanted to come hang out or something... play some fiduspawn, maybe... watch some troll anime..."

"Can we make out?" he blurts out, and you feel slightly devious. It worked. It actually worked. Wow, you feel bad. It's for the best, though. You want this as much as he does.

"Yeah, I guess," you say, and he flushes a dark violet. "Are you okay?"

"N-no. Wait. Yes. I need to go," he says. You watch him leave, wondering what his problem is. Oh well. At least you're going to get to make out with someone who won't soak you with sweat. Should be nice.

* * *

He shows up at your hive, hair freshly greased and a clean t-shirt on. He's nervous. You're sort of nervous, too, honestly, because you have no idea how much of this you're going to have to commandeer. You generally take control, anyway, once things get going, but you really have no idea how to _start_ it, especially with someone like Cronus. He'll just go with whatever, right?

He stands outside for about ten minutes before knocking. You hold back a laugh and answer. He looks at you and immediately blushes. "Hey..." you say, grinning a little.

"So, uh," he says, stumbling over his words. "I was vonder- er, wondering what exactly we'd do, because, uh, I don't exactly-"

You decide that you're just going to need to tell him straight out. It's going to be a little embarrassing, but you can do it. "I need to have sex with someone who won't sweat out his body weight," you say, feeling heat rush to your face. "You know what I mean, right? It's just sort of... man, I don't know, haha, it's just..."

"Sex? Okay," he says. He's excited. And still really nervous. "But, uh, Horuss isn't just going to come in and beat the shit out of me, right?"

You shrug. "Probably not..." you say. "He's supposed to be at Meulin's for the night, dunno... he might drop by, but I don't think so..."

He swallows, and nods. "Let's do this," he says, and you grin a little. You step aside so that he can enter. Tinkerbull floats out of somewhere to greet him, and he eyes your lusus suspiciously. "Why do you have that?"

"Tinkerbull? He's my happy thought... don't know how I could keep going without him, haha... don't exactly know if he's the real Tinkerbull or not, but..." you trail off. He accepts it, and now the two of you are just standing in the entrance of your hive. You shut the door behind him. He's just looking at you, totally unsure what to do.

Yeah... you'll just go for it. Making sure that the shades are down, you kiss him. He makes a little squeaking sound that you have to admit is adorable. Wow, he's way cuter than you thought. Not a _great_ kisser yet, but with a little practice you can fix that.

When you pull away he's blushing again, even darker than before. You wonder if he's going to be okay. Eh, he'll be fine. You kiss him again, and he _melts_, slumping into you even though he's a few inches taller. You keep him propped up, hands on his waist, making sure that he doesn't _actually_ fall over. He kisses you back after a while, or, rather, tries too, but he's not _that_ bad. You steer him over to the couch, pulling his shirt up over his head and tossing it into a corner. You push him onto the couch, straddling his hips, kissing him as much as you can, kissing his mouth and jaw and neck. You didn't know how much you needed this. He's making all of these little noises, all these cute little noises that make you want to kiss him more and maybe mess around below the waist a little bit. You want to have his hands on your body, too, but it's so much of a hassle to get your shirt off with your wings and your horns, so you decide that you'll just have to deal with it.

You go back to his mouth, kissing him sloppily, hands in his hair. He whines deep in his throat, tugging at your shirt. "It'll take too long," you say, slightly out of breath. He grimaces. You kiss him again. "There's always next time."

He nods, and both of you jump when someone knocks on your door. It's not Horuss, he wouldn't _pound_ like that, he'd just come in, so you feel like you can get up and answer.

"You should probably put your shirt on..." you tell Cronus as you get off of him, not really wanting to but knowing that you have to anyway. He reaches for you as you go, and you smile and shrug. He sighs, then gets up to get his shirt.

Damara's at the door.

_Great_. Well, you're just going to... can you just shut the door? Hopefully Cronus isn't stupid enough to wander into view.

"Hey, doll..." you say, managing a sort-of smile. You hope it's not too obvious that you were just making out with someone.

It apparently is, because she asks if Horuss is over.

Should you say yes?

Wait, shit, that's Horuss back there. Walking toward your hive. Shit, shit, shit. You slam the door in Damara's face, muttering a quick sorry, then run back to the living room.

"Out the window!" you say, and he blinks.

"Huh? But-"

"He's back," you say, and Cronus's eyes widen.

"Got it," he says, voice a little higher than usual. He wrenches open the window. You grab his head and kiss him on the mouth once before he leaves.

"We'll do this again, alright?" you say. He nods, and you watch him go.

You can't believe you're in this situation _again_.

* * *

**haha wow this got sort of long.**

**but uh.**

**yeah. **

**this is a oneshot that might be expanded once i'm done with you like greasers? which shouldn't take too much longer so um yeah there's that.**


	2. Chapter Two: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you don't know if you can handle this for much longer.

It's been _days_, and Rufioh hasn't even _approached_ you. True, the first day you didn't even go outside. You were way too horny to do anything that required being around the others. You're pretty sure it would've ended badly. So, you did the normal things that you do when you stay away from everyone else. You watched Grease. You worked on your music. You fantasized a little, and now you even had a little material to _go_ on... yeah, it was pretty awesome. But he hasn't even tried to contact you.

It's probably Horuss's fault. Definitely not the fact that you had absolutely no experience. Nope. That wasn't it. It's Horuss.

You decide to go out. Maybe you'll see someone worth hitting in, most likely you won't. You'll end up hitting on them anyway. You really, really wish that Rufioh would call you, at least. Or send you a quick text, if he didn't want to put in the effort of calling you, or didn't want Horuss to hear him. You can totally get that. At least it would make this stupid nervous feeling of insignificance go away. The first day after was great and you had so much inspiration for your music and you were basically floating.

But now...

Yeah. Not so much.

You'll go out, though. You make sure your hair looks good, make sure that your cigarette is at just the right angle, and then you exit your hive. It's a while before you see anyone, but you pick out your usual spot and lean against a tree, looking cool, like always. A few people pass by - alternate timeline trolls, mostly, you see your godtier self and feel a little bit jealous, because that guy's got _game_ - but nobody too interesting. Kurloz, once. You end up sort of hiding behind the tree at this one. Except you aren't hiding, you're just moving so that you're in better lighting. Where he can't see you. Yeah, that's right.

Rufioh passes you, and you nearly jump out and ask him what's up, but then Horuss follows him and you slink back into the shadows. Rufioh doesn't notice you. He's mostly just smiling and nodding at whatever Horuss is saying. Ugh. You need to sic Meulin on Horuss, or something.

After a few minutes of standing there, watching Rufioh and Horuss, you decide that sending Meulin after Horuss is probably the best idea you've had in a while. It might take a while to find her, but it won't be too bad. You can do that.

It takes a while to find her, but eventually you do, and she's not with Kurloz, either, which is a plus. You don't even know what his deal is. He's just way too creepy and his hair is horrible. Meulin, while seemingly intent on putting everyone in the same boat as her in regards to hearing, is a lot easier to deal with. That is, when she's not telling you that there are 'obviously no purrsible ships fur you, because nobody likes you!'

Even just thinking about that conversation you wince a little. She couldn't have just made one up? Jeez, you need to get better friends.

Either way, she's alone now, happily writing some fanfic, so you plop down next to her, reading over her shoulder. Huh. Porrim and Latula. That's pretty hot, actually.

She sees you and screeches, successfully hitting you in the face and getting her fanfiction out of sight. You rub your jaw, wincing a little. "Was that really necessary?" you ask. She frowns.

"You're not allowed to see them until Purrim and Latula say it's okay," she says. You sigh.

"I'm not here about that. I need to ask you a favor."

Predictably, she shakes her head. Wow. You didn't even _say_ what kind of favor it was. Just like them to assume that it's going to be sexual. Sure, it's going to help you get laid, hopefully, but all she needs to do is drag Horuss away for a feelings jam and it'll be done.

You sigh. "Come _on_, it's not like that," you say. She looks at you skeptically. "I just need you to get Horuss away from Rufioh long enough so that I can talk to him about something."

On second thought, maybe you shouldn't have told Horuss's moirail so much. You need to fix this.

"I mean, nothing that has to do with sex. It's about... um... possibly... animating something for his favorite troll anime and he wants me to write the music. And... Horuss will get the wrong idea," you say.

You're so bad at lying on the spot. You have to plan these things out before you totally lie about them. Like gaining sympathy. That's usually all lies, but you know what you're going to lie about before you lie about it. Lying is hard. It's hard and nobody understands.

She's looking at you like she's going to run and tell Horuss that you're fucking his matesprit, which you're not, yet. "You just want to hit on Rufioh!" she says. "Ampurra, that pairing will nefur work! He's way too cool for you!"

"Thanks for that," you say, tipping your head back and looking up at the sky, almost choking on your cigarette. "You know, I'm not such a bad guy. It's hard, you know, being me."

"I'm sure it's very hard," she says. It's hard to tell if she's being sarcastic when she's screaming like that, but you're pretty sure she is. "No."

"Come _on_, give me five minutes," you say. Then you think of something. "Do Porrim and Latula know you're writing fanfiction about them?"

She pauses. "Well, I ask them before I show anyone!"

"But would they be very happy if someone told them that you _were_? And if that someone happened to be me and I _knew_ about it? Your credentials would fly out the window, kitten," you say.

She hits you again.

You really don't know why she keeps doing that.

"Fine," she says. "Five minutes. But if my meowrail kills you, it's your own fault."

You grin, biting down on the end of your cigarette. "Fantastic. Thanks, kitten."

She looks like she wants to hit you again, but thankfully, she doesn't. Your face has taken enough abuse today.

You follow her at a distance, keeping cool, trying to make it look like you're not following her. You hide behind a hive while she lures Horuss away for their impromptu feelings jam, and once he's out of sight, you make your move.

Rufioh doesn't look that surprised to see you. "Hey..." he says. You move closer to him, and he looks around. "Not out here... Horuss could come back, and someone could see..."

You nod. You have no desire to get your ass kicked by Horuss. "So, why haven't you called me or anything?" you ask. That sounded stupid. Well, nothing you can do about it now except push on. "I was-"

"He was around," Rufioh says. "He knows something went on... could smell the hair grease on me, or something, I dunno... I wasn't out of his sight for days, man, it was kind of tough... I was going to call you, maybe schedule something, at your place this time, because nobody's going to come visit you..."

Ouch.

Wait, he's still talking.

"So... I'll let you know when I'm free, okay?"

"Okay," you say. You sound way too eager. You need to tone it down a little. "I mean, sure. Yeah. Sounds cool."

He glances around and kisses you quickly, pulling away almost as quickly. You want more. You really, really want more. He shouldn't be torturing you like this.

The two of you just sort of stand there awkwardly, looking at each other. He's biting his lip, looking at you and you're shaking a little bit, staring at him. You're so turned on right now. You're not even going to try to deny it. Meulin's kept Horuss away for longer than you expected, you'll have to-

You hear a shout of "What?" from somewhere to your left and you wince. Rufioh looks alarmed.

"I better go," you say, moving to leave. Horuss, however, is a lot faster than you anticipated and has you shoved against a tree before you can blink.

Wow, you're actually sort of terrified right now.

"Horuss... he wasn't doing anything, really..." Rufioh says. What a nice guy. Even if you weren't desperate you'd like him.

"Meulin says that he was trying to 'make a move on you,'" Horuss says. Even while he's possibly breaking your collarbone he's smiling that really disturbing grin. It's horrible. You wish he would stop. Also, you wish that he would let you go. He pushes you harder against the tree and you can practically hear your bones crack. You squeak a little. Wow, this is embarrassing. "I apologize, seadweller, but I must not let anything get in the way of my matespritship, even if you are of royal blood."

"Also, you're a douche!" Meulin cheers. Wow, when did she get here? And is that _Kurloz_ behind her? Is everyone just showing up to watch you get beat up by Horuss?

You feel so loved.

Horuss nods, just a tiny bit. Then he hits you in the face and you don't think that you've ever felt something more painful. You're pretty sure that your cheekbone shattered on impact. You try to not make a total fool of yourself, but you let out some sort of half-sob anyway, trying to bring your hands up to protect your face and he throws you to the ground, painfully jarring the bones that _aren't _broken yet. You curl up, trying to protect your face, oh god your _face_, it hurts so _much_ you don't know if you can _deal_ with it. He puts a foot on your back, pinning you to the ground, while he turns to fend off Rufioh trying to rescue you. You mostly just lay there, wallowing in your pain and looking pathetic. Your _face_.

They're arguing about something, but you're too preoccupied with the massive pain in your face to care. You can't move the right side of your face. You can't do it. It hurts _so much _you can't even deal with it it's _horrible_ you knew he was strong but _why_.

Apparently, Rufioh convinces him to leave you alone, because eventually he lifts his foot from your back and you're free to breathe and other fun stuff, without your lungs being crushed. You cough, immediately bringing pain to your face. You need to go home. You really, really need to go home.

As you make your way home, trying not to move your face so much, you wonder if it's really worth it.

Yeah... especially for Rufioh, it's worth it.

* * *

**not much crofioh in this chapter but this one, unlike you like greasers? will actually have some semblance of a plot so that's cool**

**also speaking of you like greasers? i lied i'm just switching off update days i'll update you like greasers? and then this one the next day and et cetera so there's that also these chapters tend to be quite a bit longer than greasers? chapters so yeah i'm putting a little more effort or something in this one idk**


	3. Chapter Three: Rufioh

Your name is Rufioh Nitram and your matesprit is pissed.

You're not quite sure if he's pissed at you or if he's pissed at Cronus, but either way, you're a little nervous. He's sweating so much, and the grin on his face is something even more terrifying than usual. Did you say a little nervous? Uh, no, you're a lot nervous.

Once the two of you get back to your hive, he turns to talk to you. Shit. He's going to bash Cronus for the next hour or so, and while generally you'd just sort of block this out like you do whenever he talks angrily about someone who was hitting on you, you've gotten kind of attached to Cronus. He's so inexperienced it's adorable. Sure, you knew that nobody liked him, but you didn't expect him to be _that_ awkward. It's cute.

"That was just Cronus being Cronus, correct?" he asks, and you detect a bit of worry in his voice. He's thinking back to earlier this week. He _knew_ someone had been there, he knew it but he didn't have any proof so he couldn't do anything about it. You're a little scared what's going to happen when he finds out. You hope you don't get paralyzed from the neck down again. That was not fun.

Man, you really need to stop doing this.

"Yeah..." you say."You know him..."

Horuss nods, and you can tell he's still a little annoyed, but he doesn't make anything more of it. "I am going to take a shower," he says. He makes to leave, and then pauses. "Join me?"

You shake your head. "I already showered today..." you say, and he nods, leaving the room. You actually haven't showered yet, you just want to apologize to Cronus. You do feel bad that Horuss pretty much broke his face. Wow, you wish that that hadn't happened. If it was anyone but Cronus, they wouldn't want anything to do with you for a while.

As soon as you hear water running, you pull out your phone. You're not actually sure how you got Cronus's number, but you think he probably just took your phone at some point and put it in. You never asked him for it, you know that. And if he asked you for yours, you're pretty sure that, before this past week, you wouldn't have given it to him.

You have a few texts from him, mostly asking why you weren't talking to him, and while it's kind of annoying, you feel bad about that, too. Wow, you need to stop feeling so bad about everything. You need to have a feelings jam with Tinkerbull or something. Or maybe you need a moirail. Too bad Meenah's not around, she's never hit on you and you admire that quality in a troll.

"sorry about horuss break1ng your face..." you text him. In about twenty seconds, he responds.

"its not too bad. vwell, actually, yeah, it is pretty bad, my face hurts like hell. you should kiss it and make it better."

"1'm pretty sure that would just make 1t hurt more..."

"yeah, yeah, vwhatevwer. but anyvway, you should come ovwer sometime. soon, preferably."

"1 w1ll as soon as 1 can... just wanted to say sorry, you know..."

"yeah. i knowv. vwell, im going to go vwatch grease and vwallowv in my misery, unless you vwant to keep talking, vwhich vwould be totally cool vwith me. john travwolta can vwait."

"no... better not, horuss could be out of the shower any m1nute... he'll ask me who 1'm texting, and 1 don't want h1m to break any more of your body..."

"alright."

You delete all evidence of ever texting Cronus and change his name in your phone to 'do not answer.' You'll go rewatch some of your favorite troll anime now. Upon discovering the humans, you started to watch some of their anime, but it's just sort of weird and you don't really like it as much as the troll anime you know and love. Everyone once in a while you'll watch an episode or two, just to spice it up, but for the most part it's rewatching your favorites.

You're curled up on your couch, watching troll anime characters kick ass, when Horuss comes out of the bathroom. He's wearing nothing but underwear, and he brings a blanket for the two of you. He's careful not to hurt you as you curl into him as well as you can, with your horns and your wings - you just weren't _built_ for cuddling, it's a struggle. But you've been with Horuss long enough that both of you know how to do this, he spreads the blanket over your laps and you lean forward a little, and the two of you make it work. He doesn't really enjoy troll anime, but he watches it with you because he knows it makes you happy.

Before nodding off, you have time to ask yourself - are you really giving up _this_ for Cronus Ampora?

* * *

The answer is yes. You are giving up a loving, albeit overwhelming, matesprit for Cronus Ampora. Horuss is at Meulin's for a few days - apparently they have some serious feeling jams to partake in - and you are going to have at least half a day with Cronus. You need to figure out how he works, what his little habits are, how much he'll actually annoy you. Really, he hasn't been that bad - maybe the secret to making Cronus Ampora not an insufferable douchebag is to be nice to him. Huh. Who would've known.

You're not wearing a very complicated shirt today. It's a button-up, so your horns won't be in the way, and, really, you don't care if he tears it off of you. You're not very attached to it.

You knock on his door, and it's a while before he answers. His hair is only half-done, and when he sees it's you it looks like he nearly has a heart attack. "Oh," he says, his voice a few octaves higher than usual. "Rufioh. Thought it was Kankri, actually, usually he's the only person to visit me, and I don't really care if he sees my hair when it looks like such a godawful mess. Uh, come in."

You glance around a few times before entering, but eventually you're totally sure that nobody has seen you willfully entering Cronus Ampora's hive. He's still freaking out about his hair. It's just going to get messed up anyway - of course, you're a total hypocrite, you spend _way_ too much time in the morning doing your hair, but, wow, you don't freak out if someone sees you before you get it done. You just sort of laugh awkwardly and apologize.

His hive is messy. There's stuff thrown around everywhere and you have to pick your way through piles of clothes, torn up pieces of paper, and discarded pairs of headphones. You're pretty sure there's a pile of wands shoved behind the couch, too, but you're not going to ask about that. You're pretty sure it'll bring up some bad feelings.

He leads you to his bedroom, which is just as messy as the rest of the hive, if not more. He actually has a bed, like humans do, which is actually pretty convenient for sitting on. There's a television right in front of the bed, probably so that he can watch some stuff before going to bed, and it's paused on a human male who you have to admit is fairly attractive, as far as humans go.

He sees you looking and turns slightly violet. "The Outsiders," he says. "Dallas Winston, played by Matt Dillon. Hot as hell."

You shrug, really unsure what you should be doing. He has a desk shoved in the corner, one broken leg propped up on a hardcover book that looks suspiciously like a popular troll wizard series back in Beforus, something about a wizard school or whatever.

You've never really been into fantasy books. You like it well enough, but you like troll anime and manga a lot more. Fantasy troll anime and manga is pretty cool, though.

You sit down on his bed. He sits down next to you. He looks anxious. Hell, you probably look anxious, too. You always look anxious. You always _feel_ anxious. You don't really see what everyone sees in you.

He swallows. "So," he says. His voice is still a little high. You notice that he doesn't have any pants on yet. He's wearing underwear, but he is seriously lacking pants. Nice legs, though. "What brings you here?"

"Horuss is going to be at Meulin's for a few days," you say, shrugging. "Figured we'd better take this time to... you know... hang out and stuff..."

"Does Horuss ever go back to his own hive, or does he just alternate between you and Meulin?" Cronus wonders, and that's actually a pretty good question. You can't remember the last time Horuss slept at his own hive, actually.

Huh. Greaserfish might be onto something here.

He's looking at your lips, and you're pretty sure he wants you to kiss him. You want to kiss him, too, actually, as weird as it sounds. You want to kiss Cronus Ampora. Huh. Never thought you'd think those words in the same sentence, ever. But, you do, and you did think it, because you're pretty sure he was the best choice for this little project of yours. You're just enough attached to him that you feel bad when Horuss beats on him, but you're not so attached that you lose sleep over it. A nice little balance there, really.

You inch over and kiss him. He squeaks, flushing a dark violet, and you smile a little, putting a hand over his and getting closer. He swallows and kisses you back, kissing hesitantly at first, but eventually he gets used to it and you deepen the kiss, tugging at his shirt. He tries his best to wriggle out of it, and you have to break the kiss to get it over his head.

He looks practically starry-eyed. You're pretty sure that if this was anime, he would literally have stars in his eyes. You're not quite sure how he manages the look with blank, dead eyes, but he does.

You unbutton your shirt, too, and he watches you hungrily, taking in every inch of skin uncovered. You decide that it's too much of a pain to actually take your shirt off and leave it at unbuttoned, going back to kissing him. He's braver this time, so you use a little tongue. He falters. The only way he's going to get better is by practice, though, so you keep going at it. He's enjoying it, you can tell that much from how much his hands are hesitantly around your waist and how he makes a little noise whenever you stop for a second.

You push him down onto the bed and lower yourself onto him, hands framing your face, your body pushed up enough so that you can keep kissing him. He's a little taller than you, just enough so that the tops of your legs are even with his stomach, and it's sort of nice, not having just hard muscle to press up against. He's trying to touch you, hands sliding into your shirt, but he gets too distracted by how you're kissing him. You're relishing every kiss that doesn't have sweat as a primary ingredient. You break away from his mouth and he whines, but the whine turns into a moan, when you kiss down his neck, being careful around the gills and giving him enough marks to make him feel good about himself. He makes so much noise, whimpering and moaning and whining and gasping whenever you do _anything_, and you're pretty sure it's a miracle that he hasn't had to reach for a bucket to avoid getting genetic material all over his bed, if the way his bulge is moving around has anything to say about it. He's going _wild_ down there.

You're not quite ready to pail, though. Or even mess with your bulges, really, even though yours is feeling ready to go, too. Not as much as Cronus's of course, but it's still there.

You need to stop before it gets more intense. You can't do it. You push yourself off of him, and he makes a noise of protest. He sits up. Now his hair is even more messed up, and you can see a few hickeys starting to form. Yeah... anyone who walked in right now would know immediately what the two of you were up to.

It's a good thing Cronus Ampora doesn't have many friends.

* * *

**yeah... sorry this took a while, but i had stuff going on but anyway here we go! by the way, i'm just changing this to m because i'm pretty sure i'm going to have to later, even if rufioh keeps up with his 'no pailing yet' thing. it'll happen sooner or later, just wait.**


	4. Chapter Four: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you have never been so frustrated in your life _or_ death.

You've been alone in your hive - house, wait, it's a _house_ - for the past few hours. You just don't get why Rufioh didn't want to keep going. It's not like the two of you were interrupted by anything. And _you really wanted to keep going, damn it._

You finish The Outsiders and sigh, glancing around. It's really a shame that your house was such a mess when he came over. And your _hair_, your hair looked and still looks horrible. You sort of wish he would've given you more of a warning. You sort of wanted to impress him, as weird as that sounds - he's a _lowblood_, you're a seadweller, really, if it was like it was when you were alive, if it was like it was on _Alternia_, he should _have_ to have sex with you.

It's not either of those, because both of you are dead. In the dreambubbles, none of that really matters. Nothing really matters, after being dead for so long. All of you got stuck in these ruts - you stand in the same place every day, trying to pick up _someone_ to _finally_ get some action, Rufioh always seems to be avoiding Horuss but he won't break up with him, Kurloz and Meulin still have some sort of thing going on, though nobody really knows what it is. Kankri's even been repeating some of his lectures lately. And you're not really sure what you mean by lately - weeks? Months? The last twenty sweeps- years?

There was a bit of an uproar when your ancestors in kid form showed up, of course, but they still mostly stick to themselves. You've seen yours, what, once? You think he's avoiding you. You're pretty sure it's one of your alternate self's faults. Probably god-tier Cronus. He's got that codpiece and damn does he annoy people with it.

You have to admit, you're sort of jealous.

There were, of course, the living ones - and the appearance of Meenah at last! That was fun, that was different, you blew it immediately. None of the living ones would talk to you, except the one with the shades for a few seconds. Then the little Vantas, out of his complicated, weird thing at last, pulled him away, yelling something about how they were leaving. It was a shame, really. You were pretty sure that you weren't fucking it up with this little blond human. He seemed to think you were interesting, if only for a little bit.

Maybe you should switch it up today. Just for fun. Already, you're switching it up, with this whole Rufioh thing that will probably end in immense pain for you, but, hey, while it lasts it's looking to be _fantastic_. You have a few hickeys from him, which you are going to display proudly, no matter what happens to you. They need to know that you're off the market, that they missed their chance with Cronus Ampora. Sure, Rufioh's only one quadrant, but you can play the 'humans only have one quadrant' thing. But if someone offers a wild black fling, you totally won't say no.

But yeah, you think that you're going to stand in a different spot today. Maybe you'll hang out in Mituna's weird brain place? Can't be that bad, you can never tell where _he's_ going to be, but, still, maybe you'll see Latula. Or maybe you'll hang out in the forest where Rufioh and Horuss (and Damara, sometimes, you're not really sure what to think of her) hang out. Or maybe you'll see if you can find Porrim. Or Kankri, maybe he'll lecture you about your hickeys very loudly, so that everyone hears. Because, if you're going to get lectured by Kankri, it's always best to get lectured about something _good_. Something you can _brag_ about.

After re-doing your hair and making sure that you look _fantastic_, you head out. You wander a bit, accidentally stepping onto the lilypads for a little bit. You leave really, really quickly, though - you don't go near that area unless you need something from Meulin, Kurloz scares the _shit_ out of you. You just don't know what his deal is. If he comes up to you, or is in the same vicinity as you, you don't ignore him, that'd just be _rude_. You try to stay on his good side, complimenting him, trying to talk to him without mentioning the bad things, like his fuckup of a moirail, or asking if he would kill you if you went after Meulin seriously (_that_ was probably the worst idea you'd ever had. You really don't know why you ever said that. You don't think about that anymore.), or even his hair, anymore.

You did talk about his hair once, tried to give him some tips onto how to style it better, maybe cut a little off because _damn_ you're pretty sure that's half his body weight and adds about a foot and a half to his height, and the next thing you knew, you were collapsed in some weird place with a huge headache. You still don't know what happened there.

You still don't really want to know.

Surprisingly, Rufioh is at your usual spot. Well, screw doing something new.

"Hey," you say, grinning at him. "What was up with the abrupt ending? I was having fun there."

He laughs awkwardly, glancing around. "Yeah... sorry about that... I just didn't know if he'd be back... he's not, but I never know when two days at Meulin's will turn into one... or half an hour... you get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, yeah," you say. "So, if you have to deal with Meulin, do you have to deal with Kurloz, too? 'Cause I was just thinking about him and what a creepy fucking guy he is. Like, wow, calm it down man."

"He's alright, I guess..." Rufioh says. "Horuss doesn't like to bring Meulin over, so Kurloz doesn't really come, either... but sometimes we'll all go do something... I dunno, he's pretty cool... quiet..."

Yep. Nobody else thinks he's an evil mastermind. You're pretty sure Rufioh is creeped out by him, because, let's be honest, who _wouldn't_ be, but you can also tell that he's just dismissing what Kurloz really is. Which is some sort of evil mastermind, bent on throwing you all to the thing that's killing the bubbles.

Sometimes you think that you should've gone with Meenah. Sure, it sounded like a lot of work, but you'd win points with her and you probably wouldn't have to deal with Kurloz. Who, to be honest, hasn't been around very much lately, but he still shows up every once in a while. Once or twice you saw the little Makara.

Now _he_ was fucked up.

"You okay?" Rufioh asks, and you stop thinking about Makaras and their awful hair and begin thinking about Rufioh. It's a lot more pleasant of a subject. You nod, biting down hard on the end of your cigarette. "Okay... just looked like you were having some bad thoughts there..."

"Nah," you say. "No bad thoughts here, chief. Just thinking about the next time we should hook up."

"Oh, wow..." he says, then glances around again. You do, too, just for something to do. Nobody. He sighs, then kisses you quickly. You hate it when he does that. Well, you don't _hate_ it, you just hate the fact that when he does that, he never does anything more. He just does that and he's done with it. It's so fucking stupid. And it makes you blush a little. Which is also so fucking stupid.

"You've got to stop doing that," you say. He looks at you, uncomprehending. "It's _teasing_ me, man, I can't handle it. It's just so... I get reminded of what we could be doing, but I know when you do that, you're not gonna do anything beyond it."

"Oh, sorry..." he says, but he's smirking. He's _smirking_. God. You seriously can't handle him right now. "But... we should plan out when we can do this again... hey, do you want to play my moirail? I mean... in public... and it would give me excuses to go over to your hive..."

You bite your lip. You haven't had a moirail in a long, long time. Not since before the game, at _least_. You're not sure you remember how to be pale, if only to pretend. But... maybe you can. If it can get Rufioh over to your hive... yeah, you can fake it.

"That would work," you say, and he grins. Wow, he's really attractive. You seriously don't know if you can handle how attractive he is. Like, seriously. But at least the two of you have a plan now.

You'll pretend to be his moirail, and he'll be able to come over more often. Shouldn't be too hard, right? You look at him, and you can tell that he thinks that it might be a little hard, but, well, who cares.

"How long was Horuss supposed to be at Meulin's?" you ask.

"A few days..." Rufioh says, and you grin. "What?"

"Enough time to have a little more making out," you say. He looks at you, a little skeptical, and you put on your best puppy-dog face. "C'mon, it'll be fun. All we have to do is find a dark corner someplace and go at it."

"Can you stay quiet?" he asks, and you wince. "Sorry."

You sigh, letting him know that it was rude but you're willing to put it behind you, and then work up the courage to kiss him. "I'll try."

The two of you wander around until eventually finding some space between two hives. He knows that it takes you _forever_ to get things going, so he has you up against the wall and is kissing you in no time. You're focused on keeping quiet and how his mouth feels against yours, his hands on your waist and his body against yours. It's almost too much.

He slips his mouth away from yours and kisses your neck, apparently planning on giving you a few more hickeys. You let out a whine, and faster than you thought possible, his hand is up covering your mouth, and you're shaking and trying to keep quiet and _wait aren't your hands supposed to be doing something, too?_

You have no idea. You don't know what you're doing but _damn_, he sure does, because he's making you crazy. His hand is muffling the noise you could not manage to keep down, his mouth is on your neck, his other hand under your shirt, feeling your skin.

There's a noise that's not you (shocker, huh?), and you both jump. Rufioh glances back. Oh. Porrim's walking past. She gives the two of you a strange look before continuing on her business. You breathe a sigh of relief, and Rufioh smiles a little.

He kisses you, one of those short, quick kisses, and mutters a good-bye.

You stand there for a few more minutes before finding the strength to go home.

* * *

**this is probably the last update for a while? because nanowrimo is coming up and halloween night which is when i would update this for the last time before nanowrimo im planning on like taking a bunch of fic requests and just writing a whole bunch of stuff before november so yeah there's that um i dunno when i'll finish my thing usually i do around the 20th, so **_**maybe**_** around then not promising anything but there should be regular updates again in december**


	5. Chapter Five: Rufioh

Having a moirail, even a fake one that you make out with behind closed doors, is doing a lot for your mental well-being.

Horuss did end up staying at Meulin's for a few days – you stayed over at Cronus's hive, the two of you made out, he got you to watch some weird human movie where they sang a lot and danced weird and the car flew at the end, and then he played some music for you – and when he got back, you announced your new moirail.

He wasn't very happy about it, you could tell, but, hey, he accepted it. That was better than nothing. And if he notices the constantly reappearing hickeys on Cronus's neck, he doesn't say anything.

_And _now you can finally change Cronus's name in your phone from 'do not answer' to 'cronus .'

The pale symbol at the end was his idea. He was just excited to get someone's number when he asked for it instead of having to just wheedle them out of Kankri.

And now the two of you are going on your first paledate with Horuss and Meulin. He calls you half an hour before the four of you are set to go find someplace to sit around and be pale in a group or whatever with a very important question.

"Hey, uh, what if Kurloz kills me?" he asks. You blink.

"Why would he do that? Unless… you're not planning on hitting on Meulin, right?" you ask hesitantly, and his negative answer is so loud that you're pretty sure Meulin herself heard it. "Alright, alright… just making sure…"

"He doesn't like me, I know it," Cronus says, and he's sort of whining. You roll your eyes.

"Calm down…" you say, and he quiets. He's still nervous, you can tell. You sigh. "We can have it at my hive, not out in public, how about that?"

"That'd be better," he says, and you mutter a quick 'bye' and hang up, turning to Horuss.

"Change of plans… Cronus wants to stay here…" you say, and Horuss frowns.

"Whyever would he choose to come here instead?" he asks, and you laugh awkwardly, shrugging.

"Dunno, man, something about Kurloz… says he's not planning on hitting on Meulin, but… you never know with Cronus…" you say, and Horuss forces his smile back on his face.

"If he tries to, as you say, 'hit on Meulin,' he will be leaving," Horuss says. He pauses, then adds something. "Perhaps in a bodybag."

Yeah. Yeah, um, you're really worried for Cronus when Horuss finds out about the two of you. It's not even an 'if' anymore, because you're going to see this through. You're going to stay with Cronus Ampora until Horuss finds out and possibly kills him, maybe kills you, and breaks up with you. Because, for some reason, you are too damn awkward to break up with someone the normal way.

Meulin shows up first, smiling and giggling and giving you a quick hug before pouncing on Horuss. You watch them, and then Cronus arrives, swaggering into the hive and knocking on the already-open door, cigarette peeking out of his mouth, that undeniably attractive half-smirk on his face.

"Hey," he says, shutting the door and slinging an arm around your shoulders. You notice the nervous look he gives Horuss, but he keeps his arm there, anyway. Horuss's grin is pointed directly at Cronus's arm, and, to be honest, it is seriously making you nervous.

So, you give him an awkward, one-armed hug, duck out from under his arm, kiss Horuss, and head into the living room.

"Didn't really know what Meulin liked, haha…" you say, trailing off. "But, uh, I figured… board games would work for a pale date, right?"

"Whatcha got?" Cronus asks, biting down hard on the end of his cigarette and bending down to look at the sides of the board games. He picked up the card game off the top. "Hey, I used to play this all the time."

You glance at Horuss, wondering how the hell Phase Ten got onto your pile of generally non-competitive board games. He gives you the grin in return, and you sigh. Fine. If both Horuss and Cronus want to play it… you'll deal with Horuss possibly breaking the table, like does every single other time you play Phase Ten.

Meulin clears off the table and brings treats out for everyone. You grab a pad of paper to keep score on. Cronus deals, counting in some weird, probably-Earth language that you're not even going to try and decipher.

"Alright," Cronus says, grinning. He's sitting crosslegged next to you, which makes you kind of nervous, because Horuss usually does – of course, this is a paledate, not a romantic one, so it's okay, right? Like… he won't hurt Cronus for wanting to sit next to his 'moirail,' right? "Who's ready to royally get their ass handed to them?"

"Language, seadweller," Horuss says, and Cronus rolls his eyes, still grinning. Horuss leans forward. You wonder what the intelligence of putting the two of them right across from each other is. "You will not be winning, anyway. This is _my _game."

Cronus snorts and flicks one of Horuss's goggles. "Bring it, horseboy," he says, but you can tell that he's sort of nervous. Either way, you need to break this up right now.

"Uh, I go first, right?" you ask, managing a sort-of grimace. Horuss nods and tries to prevent Meulin from looking at his cards.

The game goes… well, relatively well, you suppose. About halfway through, when Meulin is thoroughly kicking everyone's ass and Horuss is trying very, very hard not to break the table, Cronus excuses himself to go to the bathroom.

Ten seconds later, you excuse yourself to go get a can of soda.

The two of you end up in the bathroom, locking the door, him up against the door and you kissing him furiously, hands in his hair, pulling him down to your face. He's making too much noise, he's making _way _too much noise but, to be honest, you don't really care right now. You're too focused on relieving some of the sexual tension that's in that room.

You break away, breathing hard, and notice that his lips are swollen. Noticeably swollen. You're pretty sure yours are the same way. It's going to be tough to hide this. He reaches out for you, and you swallow, wondering how much time the two of you can spend in here before Horuss notices. You figure you have about thirty seconds to a minute left.

"We've got a minute," you say, panting a little. "Should we-"

"Fuck, yes," he says, and he actually takes the initiative this time, kissing you first. You kiss him back, hands sliding down to grope his ass, and he squeaks a little, and you would be thinking about how adorable that is if you weren't worried about Horuss killing him, or maybe both of you, you're not sure, how would he react to you cheating on him?

His hips buck against you, almost of their own accord, and you feel yourself straining to finally get this pailing thing out of the way before it kills you from sexual frustration.

Horuss knocks and you jump. "Uh, impromptu feelings jam," you say, voice strangled a little. "He's, um… feeling… feeling bad about Meulin winning so much…"

Horuss is quiet, and you pray to anything that it works. After a few moments, he speaks again. "Very well," he says. "I… I trust you, Rufioh. Please know that."

With that he leaves and you breathe a sigh of relief, feeling both horrible and relieved at the same thing. You wish that your matesprit was less… well, you wish that you had more of a reason to break up with him, really. You want to break it off, he's sweaty and overbearing and can be controlling at times and _every time he leaves your hive you have to mop up sweat puddles_, but…

He's not that bad.

But you're also pretty sure that you want to break up with him. You want to see other people. This whole thing with Cronus has put you in such a good mood, it's unreal.

"Alright," you say, calming down a little. "You ah. You need to…"

"I'm fine," Cronus says, managing a smirk. He grabs his cigarette from a cupboard and sticks it in his mouth, opening the door and heading out. You follow him, giving him a quick pap on the cheek as soon as the two of you get in view of Horuss. You're glad that you grabbed your soda before meeting Cronus in the bathroom, otherwise you would've totally forgot.

Meulin looks at the two of you, a bit suspicious, but Cronus leans back, crosses his legs, and throws an arm over your shoulders. "Who's up?" he asks, baring his teeth in what's probably supposed to look like a casual grin but instead looks closer to a grimace.

"You," Horuss says, and he leans forward to grab his cards.

"Shit," he mutters, shuffling through them, trying to figure out what's going on. You have a feeling that this is going to be a long game.

In the end, Meulin does win, and Horuss only breaks the table a little bit, and then the four of you head out. Horuss is planning on walking Meulin home, and Cronus announced that you were going to do the same.

You're fairly certain that walking him home means stopping in a dark alley for a quick kiss or five.

You're not wrong, either – as soon as Horuss and Meulin are out of sight and the two of you find a suitable place, he pulls you in and you kiss him, slipping a hand down his pants. He makes a noise, muffled a bit by your mouth but still way too loud. You move away for a bit to shush him and kiss his neck, your hand teasing at his bulge and your mouth kiss his neck. He's still making way too much noise, his hands hovering awkwardly by your shoulders. Eventually, he gets up the nerve to put them under your shirt and _yes _that's what you wanted. He slides his large, fine-boned, strangely calloused – you didn't know he did anything that would make that happen, the music, maybe? – hands against lean muscle, eventually going back to get a feel of your ass and you manage to stay quieter than him, thankfully, letting out a hiss of breath against his collarbone and wait that's footsteps.

You jump away from him just as Kurloz Makara appears at the end of the alley. "Hey…" you say, grinning awkwardly and rubbing the back of your head with the hand that was not just down Cronus's pants. He just raises an eyebrow and goes on with his day.

It is some seriously good luck that it hasn't been Horuss or someone that would tell Horuss any of these times, really. You're not quite sure how luck you're going to keep getting, but, hopefully, you'll be able to pail at least once before Horuss turns Cronus's body into ground meat.

* * *

**Well hi. NaNoWriMo's over, and I finished two days early with over 130k words, and then spent the last two days of November doing some intense oneshot writing, as any of you who have me on your alert already know.**

**But, yeah, every Sunday this will be updated! So, there's something to look forward to! **


	6. Chapter Six: Cronus

You lay with your head on Rufioh's lap, tapping a pencil against your leg. You're trying to figure out a beat for this new song you've been working on, but Rufioh's massaging your head and it's sort of throwing you off.

The two of you have realized that you can touch each other a lot when you pretend to be moirails. Not making out in public or anything, because that might tip people off – you're pretty sure Porrim and Kurloz already know what's going on, and maybe Meulin has an idea – but little things. Hugging, spending time together… now that the two of you are 'moirails,' it works. It's not weird that Rufioh is hanging around you.

His fingers press down against the base of your horns and you jump, glaring up at him. He smirks. You sit up, trying to get your hair back to something that resembles decency. "Sensitive?" he asks, and you scowl, shoving your pencil in your pocket. He laughs a little, then freezes.

You look up, expecting the worst, but it's only Kankri.

"Oh. Hey, Kankri," you say. He crosses his arms tightly over his chest and just looks at the two of you. "Uh. What?"

"Why are the two of you spending so much time together?" he asks, and you share a confused look with Rufioh. "It's not like I disapprove, seeing as two trolls of such a wildly different blood color being friends is admirable, but given the personalities of both of you, it is a little odd."

"We're moirails…" Rufioh says, and you throw an arm around his shoulders to solidify the words. "Heh… one day Horuss was over at Meulin's…. I was sort of lonely… and we realized that we were pretty compatible…"

Kankri looks a bit confused, and bit suspicious, but he accepts the explanation, nodding slowly. "We work out," you say. "I can complain about not getting any, he can complain about getting too much. And then we make out – I'm just _kidding, _Kan, wow, you should've seen your face."

Rufioh elbows you and you look at him. He looks slightly panicked.

"I was kidding," you say. "Like Meulin says all the fucking time – sorry, Kankri – you're way too cool for me."

When you look up, Kankri is gone, presumably because he heard someone say something possibly offensive, and you can relax. You lean against Rufioh, wondering if the two of you should go back to your hive and make out, because you really think that that's a good idea at this point.

You mention it to him.

"Hey, wanna go back to my hive and ma- er, talk about our feelings?" you ask, and he shrugs.

"Sure…" he says, and you stand up, pulling him up along with you. It's not a long walk back to your hive, and you don't encounter anyone else. While you do wish that you could flaunt the fact that yes, the hottest troll in the session chose you, you're pretty sure that anyone who was totally sure that the two of you were making out and stuff behind your 'moirail' cover would run to Horuss and tell.

And then you'd be dead.

Again.

So, you're not going to flaunt it.

"Do you think after Horuss finds out, and after I recover, of course, it's not like I'm going to get away from that without basically my entire body broken into pieces and fed to hoofbeasts or whatever, we can still do this?" you ask, and Rufioh shrugs.

"Dunno… cross that bridge when we come to it, you know?" he says, smiling awkwardly and rubbing the back of his neck. "But… I dunno, it has been pretty cool, I guess, doing this shit with someone who doesn't sweat out his own body weight every ten minutes…"

"I bet," you say, wrinkling your nose. "I mean, okay, yeah, I'd tap that. But it's got to be disgusting. Like, how could you even do it long term? A one time deal would be okay, probably, but all the time? Like, wow, what?"

"Yeah…" Rufioh says, and then you're at your hive. You've started picking up a little, because the first time he came over it was way too messy and it was sort of embarrassing, but now you can see the floor in most places, so you figure you're good.

"So, bed, couch, here-" you're cut off when Rufioh kisses you, shoving you against the wall and hands tugging at your shirt. You wriggle out of it faster than you're pretty sure is actually possible, and he tosses it aside, hands exploring your bare skin and tongue exploring your mouth. There's always that brief amount of time where you have no idea what to do with your hands, but eventually you decide that you're going to work on getting his shirt off. The vest comes easily, and then you decide that you can basically just rip the red shirt off.

Or, you would, if you weren't having such a hard time concentrating on what you're doing right now. Somewhere along the line one of his hands went down your pants, and it's getting really… really distracting, to say the least.

You try to kiss him back as best as you can, trying not to sound so desperate as he strokes your bulge – you fail miserably at this, by the way, you let out the most obnoxious whine possible – and eventually your hands make their way to grope his ass. He takes it in stride, and you wish that you were that cool.

That happens, of course, before he pulls your pants down and kneels in front of you, at which you are completely incapable of coherent thought. If he does what you think he's going to do, you're probably going to –

He takes as much of your bulge in his mouth as he can, and you let out a low moan, clutching at his hair, trying not to shake so much or make so much noise but fact is you are, and he's being careful with his teeth but his tongue is doing wonders, you're shaking and moaning and your fingers are so tangled in his hair you don't know if they're ever going to come out.

Your hips buck almost of their own accord and you tug on your hair before you choke him with your genetic material. He jerks away, reaching for a bucket frantically, but it's too late and yep all over the entrance of your hive.

You swallow. "Uh," you say. "Sorry about that."

He nods, a bit tense, and stands up. He bites down on his lower lip, and you wonder…

"Want me to return the favor, sweetheart?" you ask, managing a grin. He opens his mouth, then just nods. You're not totally sure how to do this, but you have spent a long time working at getting rid of your gag reflex, so that has to be worth something, right?

Right.

So, you get down on your knees and Rufioh undoes his pants for you, and you are faced with the first bulge outside your own and porn that you have ever seen.

"You're… you're okay with this?" he asks, sounding a little nervous. Of course, when doesn't he sound nervous? It's just a Rufioh thing. But you don't have time to think about that. You take his bulge in your mouth hesitantly, holding onto his hips to steady yourself, and, making sure not to hurt him with razor sharp teeth, run your tongue along the bottom, wondering at the sheer warmth of it. Lowbloods were warmer, biologically, but the warmth of Rufioh Nitrams bulge in your mouth can probably be attributed to more than just him being biologically warmer than you.

He lets out a little noise, definitely not as embarrassing as the ones you do but it's still there, and you're encouraged, using your tongue a little more and looking up at him to make sure that you're doing the right thing. It seems you are, because after a bit he tugs on your horns and, after you get out of the way, his genetic material joins yours.

You stand up, wiping off your mouth with the back of your hand. "Huh," you say. "Well. That was nice."

Rufioh swallows. "How am I going to explain the vest to Horuss?" he asks, and you freeze. Yeah. Yeah, your genetic material is all over that vest. It's pretty undoubtedly yours. Shit. Er.

"You can… stick around for a while," you say, unsure. Rufioh nods. "I'll put it in the wash. You can just hang out or something."

"Play me some more music… or something…" he trails off, picking up his vest and handing it to you. You take it and throw it in the washing machine, wondering how, exactly, it's going to work with all of that decoration. But it'll probably be fine.

By the time you figure out how your washing machine works, he's got everything cleaned up and is heading up to your room. You decide to leave your clothes where they are, in a pile on the floor, and follow him. You'll just grab a pair of sweatpants or something on the way up, or maybe not. You're not picky, and apparently neither is he, because he doesn't say anything.

He sits on your bed and you make a beeline for your desk, grabbing a pair of sweatpants and pulling them on, because you're pretty sure that you're not going to end up doing anything and, anyway, it's cold and you want some pants.

You turn to your husktop, bringing up your music folder and choosing one of the newer ones. It's sort of not ready for anyone to hear it at the moment, but you figure that you can let Rufioh. After all, it was pretty much inspired by him. It's a lot different from your Meenah-inspired songs, or even your 'woe is me' stage inspired songs.

Your 'woe is me' stage being every week or so, though it's been less since you and Rufioh have started doing this. Both of you are happier, you think.

"I should teach you how to play fiduspawn sometime," he mentions. You just sort of look at him. "I mean… okay, it's sort of… childish, I guess, but… what else are you gonna do around here? It's not like… well, there's not really anything for us to do, is there? We've been here forever…"

"Yeah," you say. "I know a lot of movies by heart and have a lot of music done."

"Okay, well… some of us aren't talented," he says. He sighs. "Social life hasn't even been that great… with Horuss and everything… kind of sucks, really…"

You just look at him.

"Oh, right…" he says, laughing a little. "Uh, sorry… forgot you don't really have any friends…"

"Thanks," you say, slouching beside Rufioh on the bed. He lets you lean into him, keeping you warm even though you don't have a shirt.

Gradually, you fall asleep on him, and when you wake up a few hours later he's gone and you're tucked tightly into your human bed, covers up to your neck and pillows arranged around you to make you as comfortable as possible.

You don't even mind that he's gone that much – your music is playing in the background, though at a lower volume than before, it's nice and shady in your room, and, overall, you have had a very good day.

* * *

**I had a good week of updating, let's home that I can do this again! Either way, here's the new chapter of History Repeats – while I do have more of a plot than I do for Greasers? it's still a little vague and I'm still not quite sure what I'm doing. But, yeah. There's that.**


	7. Chapter Seven: Rufioh

This is your and Horuss's first date in a while, and damn is it awkward.

The two of you are sitting across from each other at his hive, poking at some food he made, you trying not to look at him. He's still smiling. You used to think that maybe he'd drop that when Meulin wasn't around, but then you realized that, no, serial killer Horuss is going to stay.

You miss when he was gloomier, to be honest. It sounds wrong, to say that, but it was Horuss. He was moody and aggressive but could be incredibly sweet, and got so flustered when you complimented him. Now he's just… he's just this all the time. He's emptier now, you think. Back when the two of you started having little flushed flings, when your matesprit was still Damara, he used to talk about how empty he was, how much he felt like he wasn't anything but an empty husk of muscle. And it was cool, how he got into all of this different stuff.

But now…

Now you're going to crush him even more, by doing the exact same thing the second time over.

Why can't you just _break it off _with someone?

You sigh, and he tilts his head to the side.

"What's wrong?" he asks, and you manage a smile.

"It's nothing," you say, poking at the food. It looks good, you suppose… he's not a bad cook, it was one of the things that he learned to do. He knows so much, really, and he works at it until he's great. It's an admirable quality, really… a lot better than you, who really doesn't have a talent. Okay, yeah, you're a pretty great fiduspawn player. And you do know the plot of lots of troll anime like the back of your hand. But… anything useful?

You can fly?

That's about it.

Also, apparently you're desirable, but that has only caused problems, so you're not going to count that as a talent.

He's still looking at you though, so you decide to give him some sort of answer. "Just thinking," you say. Horuss leans over the table and takes one of your hands in his – gently, very gently, he's learned to be careful – and looks straight into your eyes.

And it's really creepy, honestly, because behind those goggles are just blank, white eyes, and that's just really weird even though you have the same thing. You change the subject. "So, have you ever talked to Aranea about the other universe? Alternia, I mean…"

"A bit," he says. "I have spoken to her about myself, and you."

"Yeah… it was pretty bitching… ah, sorry…" He doesn't like it when you swear. He doesn't ever actually do anything, but you can tell he doesn't like it. He's mentioned it once or twice, and he always winces a little… but, hey, you're a lowblood, not someone that has to keep up appearances. "Revolutionary leader… I was talking about our descendants… you know, the ones who were our ancestors?"

"Ah," he says. "Not really."

"I sort of did once…" you admit. "Turns out mine can play fiduspawn… I sort of want to see him now, get a game going… been a while since I've had a challenging one… or played with anyone who wasn't my lusus, really…"

"What about Ampora?" he asks. "Doesn't he play with you?"

"Ah… he hasn't yet… really, we just sort of have feelings jams… listen to music… watch his weird human movies…"

"He sounds like a selfish moirail," Horuss says, his smile faltering for a few moments. "I know that you are happier now, but… I have a bad feeling about this, Rufioh."

You swallow and look away. You can't look at him like this, you just can't do it. You laugh awkwardly. "Heh… it's good, though…. I mean…. He's good at music and stuff…."

"Alright," he says, smile back to normal. Though it is a bit creepy, you breathe a sigh of relief. You're glad that he's back to normal. You don't want to hurt him, even though you're going to end up doing so, and you don't want him to find out so soon, because you know that Cronus is going to be in some serious pain and you might be, too.

Hopefully you don't get paralyzed again.

That… really wasn't fun.

"What else would you like to do?" he asks, and you shrug. "I do not have as much to do here as you do at your house, I apologize."

You finish your food and stand up, walking over to kiss him on the lips. "It's okay," you say, feeling guiltier with every second here. This is just like before, it's just like before and you hate doing this so much, but… what else are you going to do? Every time you try to break up with him the normal way he doesn't _hear _you, there's always something and you don't know what to do. It took you so _long _to work up the courage to try to break up with him, and it was wasted right away! This is the only way you know how to do this. It sucks, but it's the only way it's going to get done.

You just wish that he wasn't so infatuated with you. Every time he looks at you or does things that you want because he loves you, he loves you and he wants to keep you, and you feel so bad.

Everyone, apart from Meenah, has tried to get in your pants at one point or another. But none of them have ever gone through with it – even though you're a little uncomfortable with the attention most of the time, it would still be nice to be able to have a conversation without Horuss showing up in the background, just standing there, smiling, sweating buckets.

Okay, no, that was a bad way to word it.

But that's stupid. "Let's just go outside for a while," you suggest. He nods, thinking.

"Or up to the sunroom? I did get the glass roof in," he says, and you nod, managing another one of those awkward smiles. Horuss constantly remodels his hive, improving it and overall just showing off how great he is at… well, at a lot of things. The sunroom is on the top floor, and when you get up there, you realize that the entire ceiling is glass, and you can see the entire sky.

You kind of want to go flying now, actually, but you know from experience that Horuss can't go with you and this is a date, so the two of you should be together, right? And you always do what you want to do, so… so, you probably should stay here.

The two of you stand in the middle of the room, and Horuss bumps your hand. You always have to hold his hand, unless he's wearing his strength dampening gloves, because otherwise he has a tendency to get a little overexcited and crush bones. And… it's not really the best feeling, or even really close to not extremely painful.

You take his hand, looking at him and trying out that awkward smile again. You decide to kiss him, because you can tell he wants to and you just want to forget about your relationship problems right now.

His hands go hesitantly to your waist as you do so, and he's gentle as always, overly cautious and shaking a little.

You deepen the kiss and suddenly think of Cronus, blushing when you press your lips to his and making all of those cute noises when you so much as brush against his bulge and you jerk away from Horuss, face flaming. His grip tightened in his shock, and it's sort of hurting now.

"Horuss-" you say, trying to pry his hands off of you before he breaks something. It's already going to bruise. He looks at you for a few seconds, uncomprehending, and then understanding washes over his face and he backs up a few paces, letting go of you.

"I- I apologize," he says. His face sets in a determined expression and you can tell that he's going to talk about his feelings. It's a little awkward whenever he wants to talk about this stuff, but it's harder for him than it is for you – for different reasons, you because you feel really, really awkward talking about the personal stuff and him because he doesn't really know how – so you're definitely not going to rush him. "I… you've been distant lately, Rufioh. And I wanted to… I was worried when you pulled away, and I felt like you were leaving me."

His voice breaks on the last few words and it's like he just punched you in the gut. (Well, not really, you'd probably be dead again if that happened.) You swallow. "Of course I'm not… of course I'm not leaving you…"you say, and your voice is barely a whisper. "I just… I just didn't mean to kiss you harder and… I dunno…"

He nods. "I understand," he says, and you wish he wasn't so damn understanding. He just makes it harder. "Once again, I apologize. I didn't break anything, did I?"

"No," you say, shaking your head. "Just bruises, I think."

He swallows and nods. "Please know that I love you," he says. "Please do not forget that."

"I won't…" you say, and you're shaking. You don't mean to, but you're shaking. This is harder than it was when you were cheating on Damara – sure, she used to be a hell of a lot sweeter than she is now, but you hadn't been with her for what feels like an eternity. "I… no, I…"

You need to get out of there. The window is open, you'll just go.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, bolting away and leaping through the window, letting the air catch you and flying as high as you can without tiring your wings.

* * *

**yo guilty rufioh is the best man not much crofioh this chapter but this was necessary because plot reasons but next chapter man**

_**next chapter**_


	8. Chapter Eight: Cronus

You were just messing around with some music when Rufioh came crashing through your window and into your room. You, naturally, jump up and nearly cut yourself on a piece of glass.

"Woah, chief, what's going on?"

He's breathing hard, biting down on his lower lip so hard that you're pretty sure they're just going to be chunks of flesh hanging from his mouth in a few more seconds.

Okay, that was gross. You're not going to think about that.

He doesn't say anything, just pounces on you, pulling you as close to him as you can get, kissing you roughly. You taste his blood and wince a little, because wow those teeth must have hurt him. You kiss him back, though, because you're sure as hell not letting go of this.

He pushes you back on the bed, you just missing stabbing a huge, jagged piece of glass through your foot, straddling your hips and keeping his mouth on yours while his hands work at getting your shirt off of you. You're mostly just focusing on not being so loud you bring the entire dreambubble down on you.

He gets your shirt off of you and pushes you the rest of the way down so that you're flat on your back on your human bed, pinned there while he works on getting his shirt off. It doesn't take as long as you'd think, but it's just long enough that you start to get a little bored and your hands make their way up to the button of his jeans.

He bats your hands away and leans down to kiss you again, hands brushing lightly over your gills. Your bulge is seriously restricted in your tight jeans and you really, really wish that he'd take your pants off. Because, um, wow this is sort of killing you.

Eventually he gets sick of your hands trying to get his pants off, because he pins them both above your head and you're pretty sure that this troll is going to kill you with sheer sexual frustration.

You arch against him, trying to get as much skin-to-skin contact as you can. He starts to place kisses down your neck and chest, heading closer and closer to your bulge. You wriggle, trying to get closer to him.

He lets your hands go and finally, _finally _unbuttons your jeans and starts getting them off of you. You help him out, because damn you need some relief down there. He looks pointedly at you when he sees how insane your bulge is going and how your nook is basically dripping, but you ignore him. He goes to work at once, getting off of you so that his hands can reach your bulge without too much trouble.

Your bulge curls around his hand and you can _feel _the temperature difference between the two of you, especially when two fingers from his other hand gently push their way into your nook. You can't hold back the moan as he works both your bulge and your nook and it's not long before you're grabbing for a bucket.

As soon as you're done he disappears. You hear water running. He's in the shower. You wonder why he didn't just grab a bucket too, but, whatever. You push your clothes into a pile of dirty clothes and glance at your closet. You could put on some clothes. Or you could just wrap yourself in a blanket and wait for him to come back so that you can figure out what the hell is going on.

Not that you're complaining, of course. That was nice. Unexpected, but nice all the same.

He comes back about half an hour later, underwear on and towel around his neck. You're wrapped up in a blanket. He sits down on your bed next to you. You nudge him with your elbow.

"What's eating you?" you ask. He sighs and you debate sharing your blanket. Then you decide that, no, you probably shouldn't share your blanket because you're not wearing anything other than said blanket and he'll probably just think you're going for round two.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," he says, and you have a feeling that it's something that you're going to have to worry about. After all, it's probably about Horuss, and if it's about Horuss, then that means that Horuss is probably catching on.

And if Horuss catches on, you're pretty sure that your bulge is going to be gone. Like, he is probably going to just rip your bulge off for fucking his matesprit. After he beats you to a pulp. Or maybe before, so you're still conscious.

Ugh. Maybe you won't think about that.

"Horuss isn't catching on, is he?" you ask. Rufioh shakes his head slowly.

"I don't think so… I mean… I don't think you have anything to worry about, at least not right now…" he says. "I dunno… he might be catching on a little… but he hasn't asked about anything… mostly he just thinks you're a shitty moirail…"

"Why?" you ask, indignant. You turn to face him completely. "I'm so not a shitty moirail. How am I a shitty moirail?"

"Well… mostly because we've been doing stuff you like, or something… I just told him that we listen to music… watch movies…"

"What do you like to do? Watch troll anime, or whatever? That stuff's put me to sleep before," you say. "Like, okay, some of those anime chicks are hot, but mostly it looks like they're trying too hard to make them hot. And it's like, how can you get off to a cartoon character?"

"Fiduspawn is what we were talking about, mostly…" he says. "We started talking about our dancestors-"

"Mine's an asshole," you say. "I mean, okay, a version of me asks a version of you on a date. Doesn't mean you have to avoid me for the rest of forever. Like, wow, what the hell?"

"That's a little weird, to be honest…" he admits. Then he continues with what he was saying. "I was talking about how I hadn't played Fiduspawn with anyone but Tinkerbull in a while and… he was like, 'What about Ampora,' and I couldn't say that we just make out all the time…"

"Yeah, that's a bad idea," you say. "But if you want to play that sometime, I wouldn't say no. I mean, it's kind of weird, but, whatever."

"Thanks…" he says, and the two of you spend the next few hours just sort of staring at each other, making small talk every now and then but mostly just enjoying each other's company. Somewhere along the line the two of you start sharing the blanket and you find some underwear, but overall… overall it's just a nice, relaxing time.

Eventually, though, he says that he has to go.

"I sorta just… took off on him, so I should probably… apologize…" he says, and you nod. You hope that this isn't the time when he goes and spills everything, because that would really suck for you. "He's probably worried… shit…"

You put an awkward arm around him. "You'll be fine," you say. "No saying about how fine I'll be when you accidentally spill that we've been screwing around behind his back, but, he likes you too much to hurt you too badly."

"I won't tell him," Rufioh says, and there's a strength in his voice that you're only used to when the two of you are fucking. "Not yet. I will, eventually. I'm going to break up with him. But…"

"Not yet," you say, and he nods.

"Not yet," he echoes. He gives you a quick kiss on the mouth, puts on his clothes, and then he's gone, leaving you with an empty hive and a broken window.

* * *

**this is a little short but um that seemed like a decent place to stop so next chapter rufioh apologizes to horuss should be fun**


	9. Chapter Nine: Rufioh

You head back to his hive. You're walking, mostly because you don't have the motivation to fly. There's also the fact that you'd get there way faster if you flew, and you're really not looking forward to this, because he's going to look at you and he's going to look so sad and he's going to ask you if there's anything you need to tell him and yeah it's just not going to be fun.

You pass Porrim on the way, then pause. "Hey… uh, Porrim, could I… could I talk to you?" you say. She looks at you, raising an eyebrow. "I mean… it'll only take a second, doll… you'd really be helping me out…"

"Is it about Ampora?" she asks, and fuck. You'd hoped that she hadn't seen anything.

Instead of answering, you shift from foot to foot awkwardly, staring at the ground. She sighs.

"I suppose," she says. "Although, if you were looking for a black fling, there are several trolls better for that sort of thing than Ampora."

She thinks he's your kismesis. She thinks he's your kismesis, everyone else thinks he's your moirail… okay, you can work with this. Now to talk to her about it without spilling that he's actually your matesprit. "Haha… yeah…"

She gets closer, and you're practically mesmerized by how her hips are moving. You manage to tear your eyes away from her body and focus on her eyes, just on her eyes, and hold up your hands to try and ward her off.

"Slow it down doll… I mean… I'm kind of done with the whole cheating thing… ha ha…" you say, laughing awkwardly and cursing everything. She looks disappointed, but steps away all the same. Then you spill everything. "Actually… he… uh… we're matesprits… and… I don't know how to break to Horuss without him breaking me, you know what I mean?"

"Oh dear," Porrim says, putting a hand over her mouth to try and cover her smirk. It doesn't work. You can still see her smirking. "May I ask why you chose him?"

"Dunno… he's the only one dumb enough to stick with it, you know… I mean, I've had little things with you in the past, but… could we maybe do this where we're not out in the open?" you ask, and she nods. The two of you head into an abandoned hive and she sits you down on a chair, standing before you.

"Talk," she says. You open your mouth, then hesitate. You don't know how you should start this. To be honest, you're debating just saying it was a joke and getting the hell out of there. "Rufioh. Talk."

"Alright… I'm getting there…" you take a deep breath. "See… I was just… it's kind of… I wanted to have sex with someone who doesn't… you know… sweat out his body weight every hour… and Cronus was sort of there… and it sort of blew out of control… and now I'd rather date him than Horuss."

"Well," Porrim says. "That does sound like quite the predicament. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, correct?"

You don't answer. To be honest, you still sort of feel bad about the Damara thing, especially now that you think back to how nice and not sweaty she was. And now she's… sort of scary, actually. While part if it is totally Meenah's fault… you can't keep thinking you're totally blameless. It's time to man up and do something.

But you're not telling Horuss yet, because that's stupid. You know for sure Cronus will be in a world of pain, and you might be, too, depending on how Horuss takes it.

"Why don't you want to tell him?" Porrim asks, pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Well… I don't know how he'll take it… and I mean, I've tried breaking up with him the normal way… he just sort of… shit, I dunno, it just doesn't work," you finish lamely, and she nods.

"Well, I'm not quite sure what you should do, unless you plan on breaking it off with Cronus and going back to how it was," Porrim says. She pats you on the head. "Good luck!"

You sigh and wave before you leave, hands deep in your pockets, to get back to Horuss's hive.

You knock. Nobody answers, so you let yourself in. "Horuss?" you ask, voice tentative and small. "You in here? C'mon… I need to talk to you…"

You wander through the entire house before going down into his basement workroom. He's in there, working on something so furiously you want to leave. You edge back out, inching the door closed.

You shut it too loudly, though, and he notices. He rips the door out of your hands and then you're facing him, smiling awkwardly and rubbing the back of your head. "Uh… hey, doll..." you say. "So you're down here, huh…"

"Rufioh," he says. You swallow. You can't tell if he's happy you're back or mad at you, because he's just slapped that stupid grin back on his face and you're sort of terrified. "You're back."

"I… ah… yeah…" you say. You don't know how to apologize without giving it away. "I… uh… I'm just kind of… stressed right now…"

That's right. Blame it all on stress. That's perfect, that'll work. He nods, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Shouldn't your moirail help you with that?"

Shit.

"Aha… yeah, that's where I was going… played a few rounds of Fiduspawn…"

"Does he have cards?" he asks. You swallow.

"Uh," you say. "I… uh…"

You're so bad at lying. With Damara it wasn't this hard, you don't think; either that or you were younger so you had more spunk or whatever. More will to lie? Less will to break up with her? Something like that. You're really not feeling this relationship, and it is showing in your lies.

"I…" you're sweating almost as much as he is. Maybe if you kiss him, it'll be all better. Maybe… maybe… you're so bad at this. Why do you do this to yourself? It's stupid. "I must have… left them there one day or something… haha, you know how it is…"

He takes a step forward and you back up until your back hits the wall. He doesn't look totally angry, you guess, but… you're still terrified for your life. Afterlife? He can't actually kill you, because you're already dead, only Lord English can do that, right? You hope so. You don't want to be doubledead because you cheated.

"Please tell me the truth, Rufioh," he says, and he sounds so defeated you feel horrible. "If you are just trying to make him seem like a better moirail…"

Man, you really suck at lying but they really suck at making it hard for you to lie. Seriously, they're throwing you everything here.

"We just watched Grease…" you say, staring at his feet and hoping that he won't notice. He sighs, and you know that he bought it. "Sorry for leaving you like that, though…"

"It is alright," he says. You look at him, and he manages a strained smile.

You're good. You've won this round.

So why does it feel so shitty?

* * *

**Writing guilty Rufioh is my favorite now like wow it's great.**


	10. Chapter Ten: Cronus

You haven't seen Rufioh for a few days and damn are you worried.

The first day, you sort of hung around your usual meeting place, wondering if it would be okay for you to go over to his hive. The second day, you stayed home. The third, you went through your usual routine of hitting on trolls and getting rejected.

Now it's the fourth and you're standing outside his hive, trying to work up the courage to knock.

There's nobody else around, and even if there was you shouldn't be feeling so weird about it; after all, he is your 'moirail.' You have just as much right to be here as anyone else. More right, really.

Except, what if Horuss is over? You really don't want to have to deal with that. You're pretty sure that you'd die of anxiety if you knocked and Horuss answered the door. So, you're actually not going to knock. You're just going to go home and watch Grease. Yeah. That sounds like a much better, much saner plan that wouldn't get him hurt.

But… if Rufioh was _alone…_

Screw it. You'll knock. And if nobody, or Horuss, answered, you'll leave. Immediately.

Swallowing and wondering how the hell you'd gotten into this mess, you knock.

Weirdly enough, Damara answers. You're too surprised to flee and, as a result, stand there staring for about five minutes.

She says something that you don't understand, and you try to look past her. Is Rufioh in there? Probably not. But you should probably check anyway.

"Hey, kitten, mind movin' over a bit?" you ask, placing your hands on her shoulders and trying to shift her. Her stupid psychic powers kick in and she shoves you a few steps backward. "Hey, not cool. C'mon, just let me see if he's here."

"No!" she says. Finally, a language you can understand.

But it's not really what you were going for, so you'll just have to keep going. "I just want to see if my moirail's here! I don't know why you're here, but if you don't move-"

She shoves you back further with her mind, sending you toppling over. You land hard and, after getting your breath back, prop yourself up on your elbows and scowl. She stands with her arms crossed just inside his hive, looking triumphant.

You have never been so similarly frightened, angry, and turned on in your life.

Thankfully, Rufioh shows up then, hurrying out of Horuss's hive and stopping when he sees Damara. "Doll… what are you doing here?" he asks, and she pushes past him to leave. He turns to you. "Hey… haven't seen you in a while…"

"Yeah," you say, standing up. "Decided it was time to come see you, you know? But then she answered the door and it was _really _weird, like, wow, I thought the two of you were done? And apparently you are, because you were over at Horuss's place and apparently she was just being weird and staying in your hive while you were gone?"

"Something like that…" he says, sighing. He glances around. "Want to come in?"

"Yes," you say, and you follow him into his hive. You haven't been here since that double paledate the two of you had with Horuss and Meulin. The one where the two of you nearly got caught making out in the bathroom while the two of you were supposed to be doing pale things, not flushed things.

Well. All moirailships are different.

At least, that's what you'll try and use as an excuse when the two of you are found out.

As soon as the door shuts behind you, you try and kiss him. He shakes his head and moves away.

"I… I need to talk to you… then we can do whatever… but…" he takes a deep breath and, after a few more minutes, continues. "Porrim… she might… she knows."

"Didn't she see us that one time?" you ask. You figured that she knows; her and Kurloz both, though you're a hell of a lot more worried about Kurloz. Mostly because you're pretty sure he hates you. And you have no idea why.

"Yeah… she thought it was black… but…" he sighs. "I told her…"

"Why the hell would you do that?" you ask, and he shrugs. "This day just keeps getting worse, I _swear. _First that psycho East Beforan wannabe instead of you, and then it turns out you told _her_? She's going to tell Kankri or something, and I'll _never _hear the end of it. Ugh. I hate my life."

"I think… It'll probably be fine, I dunno…" he says, and you sigh. "Sorry about that…"

"It's fine," you say, even though it's probably not fine and you're probably going to die again soon. You just… you just really don't want to lose him, especially over something stupid like this. "Just don't slip and tell Horuss."

"Haha, right…" he says. Then he kisses you, and all thoughts of being even slightly mad at him are gone. You kiss him back – you've been getting better, you think – and then he has you up against the wall and his hands on either side of your face, pulling it down to meet his.

It's probably the best kiss you've ever had in your entire life. And death. The two of them are basically the same thing, anyway. The only difference is you're way hotter now that you've ditched the stupid magic stuff.

And then someone knocks on the door and Rufioh pulls away from you faster than you would've thought possible.

"Kitchen," he hisses to you, and you head for the kitchen. He answers the door, and from the screeching, you figure it's Meulin. You wonder why she's here, then figure that it has something to do with Horuss and die a little inside. Like, there's this part in you that's even deader than the rest of you.

After a while, you get bored and poke your head out of the kitchen. Yep. It's Meulin, and she is having a very animated conversation with Rufioh. You can't hear what he's saying over her screeches about how lonely and sad Horuss is. It's probably a bad idea to let her know that you're here, but you do anyway because you're an idiot.

"Hey, kitten!" you say cheerfully, and she whirls around and glares at you. Rufioh just gives you a look. You grin at her. "What's up?"

"You need to stay out of this, _Ampurra_," she hisses, jabbing you in the chest with one finger. You back up, raising your hands defensively.

"Alright, alright," you say. "Just wanted to see what was going on. "I mean, he is my-"

"You're stealing him away from Horuss!" she says. "I don't want one more word out of _you,_ you pathetic excuse for a troll."

With that, she turns around and stalks back to Rufioh, who looks shocked.

You slink back into the kitchen, opening the fridge and sighing. From the sounds of it, she's going to be here for a while. Might as well make some food or something for you and Rufioh to share when she leaves.

* * *

**Even though he's not one of the characters that's so easy to write it's ridiculous, Cronus is always so much fun to write.**


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